Saturday, January 21, 2012

blog #1 Fake anti-malarials in Africa put millions at risk

Fake anti-malarials in Africa put
millions at risk after being"hampered by poor quality and fraudulent drugs.” This article
basically talked about how a research team gather anti-malarials drugs from
many different African countries and tested them and found out they were
counterfeit drugs. These criminals were mixing the wrong active pharmaceutical
ingredients together to make people believe they were cured, but actually the
counterfeit drug just ease the malaria symptoms but did not cure the disease.
This counterfeit drug had atrocious side effects to them especially if they
interacted with other medications. They
found out that some ingredients in the drug was from south east Asia, so this
gave them a hint that it was additional group involved on this counterfeit drug. The police
did make some arrest in Southeast Asia and in Nigeria. I consider this to be a
terrible adversity because it lead people to believe they were walking around
disease free and healthy while they were really infected it. The people believe
they were treated because it made the symptoms go away (at least for a while)
and it ease the symptoms to scam people into believing that they were diseases free.
This caused people who believe they were treated to expose themselves more and
possibly spread the disease more and more. Also the side effect was awful to
because you could mix it with another drug and it possibly cause death. I think
that the people that participated and making this drug should be injected with
malaria and have to take their own medicine. I believe they would then know how
serious counterfeit drugs are, and they are putting people’s life at a even
higher risk of death. I do suppose that if it was possible the researcher get
together to see how they can keep a closer eye on the drugs that go in and out
of Africa and test the drugs more often not just on a project basics.